I don’t know about you, but for a long time, one of the themes in my life has been waiting for the perfect moment to do something.
Send that email, meditate, start working out, invest in myself, put myself out there, make a phone call, say sorry, or write my first blog.
So it got me thinking… what is perfect?
Is it:
A. Being entirely without fault or defect
B. Satisfying all requirements
C. Corresponding to an ideal standard or abstract concept
D. Faithfully reproducing the original
E. All of the above
The answer (according to Websters dictionary): E, all of the above.
If we combine this with their definition of moment, we get something like this:
Being entirely without fault or defect and satisfying all requirements while corresponding to an idea standard AND/OR abstract concept while faithfully reproducing an original version within a minute portion or comparatively brief period of time.
Yikes.
In the last few weeks, I have begun to cultivate a practice of beginning before I am ready, and letting go of the idea that there is even such a thing as a perfect moment, or that I would want there to be.
Based on the above, I personally don’t want to look back on my life and say “I had moments.” I want to have an experience. I want to have a FULL life. And ironically, all we have to make that happen in are moments – what we do with the right now. So waiting for one to come along that feels perfect is a waste of each perfect opportunity we have to create what’s perfect for us. Because truly, are we ever really ready? AND, is that ever the point?
When we wait for the perfect moment, what we are really waiting for is to say we are fully prepared.
When we wait to be certain that it is the perfect moment, we rob ourselves of the chance to have an experience. To learn, to grow, to discover our strengths, discover what is missing in the world and what we can bring to it. If everything went perfectly, we would not be called into our highest selves time and time again, and we would not have the joy of experiencing others in theirs. There would be no need for faith, for inspiration, for collaboration.
So perhaps it’s not what would you do if you knew you could not fail, but what would you do if you knew you would?
A way cannot be made if you do not move. If you wait until you are ready, you will never begin.
The truth is, the perfection is in the journey, in the whole. It’s in what we do with the moments we have, the choices we make and continue to make - especially when things aren’t perfect.
We don’t know how we’re going to get there or even where we’re going to go, but we know we have to.
And that, is enough to get started.
I waited a loooooooong time to write my first blog. I waited for the perfect moment of inspiration to write, the perfect thing to write about, for the hesitation to go away, for me to be completely confident. I told myself I didn’t have the skills, the inspiration, the talent, to do the one thing I long to do: express myself through story.
I don’t know about you, but my favorite stories are ones of the hero’s journey, not the hero’s perfection. Nothing inspires me more than the stories of human experience: the failures, the trials, the shortcomings, the coming together, the pivots, the reinvention, the redemption, the love. For me, the perfection is in the divine we discover through the human experience.
I’m letting myself off the hook that I have to be perfect or wait to be perfectly sure. I’m going back to the juice that’s in the journey, and I trust that in bringing forth what is within me and actively walking in faith will unfold perfectly if I listen to those whispers and have the courage to act on them.
I hope that we never stop experiencing and discovering, that we never stop growing and living out loud.
Quite simply, what else is there?
What if right now was a perfect moment?
What can you stop waiting for? What can you begin right now? What are you longing to bring forth?
I want to know!
All my Love,
Jenna
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Jenna Hall is an actress, opera singer, Reiki Master, and Senior Daily Love Mentor. She is also the resident Boo at TDL.
Follow her on twitter here: @seejennalove
